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3D-Printing Firm Makerbot Cracks Down On Printable Gun Designs

The 3D-printed lower receiver of an AR-15, which until recently could be found on the 3D-printing website Thingiverse.

You have the right to bear arms. But you don’t necessarily have the right to upload them.

In the wake of one of worst shooting incidents in American history, the 3D-printing firm Makerbot has deleted a collection of blueprints for gun components from Thingiverse, its popular user-generated content website that hosts 3D-printable files. Though Thingiverse has long banned designs for weapons and their components in its terms of service, it rarely enforced the rule until the last few days, when the company’s lawyer sent notices to users that their software models for gun parts were being purged from the site.

One letter forwarded to me by Thingiverse user Michael Guslick, for instance, explained that a design for an AR-15 trigger guard he uploaded to the site violated its rule that users not “collect, upload, transmit, display or distribute any User Content… that…promotes illegal activities or contributes to the creation of weapons,” as the letter reads. “In exercising our policy enforcement discretion, we have decided to remove the…content as of today.”

When I checked Thingiverse earlier this month for gun components, it was easy enough to find firearm parts such as the “lower receivers” for several models of semiautomatic rifles and handguns. Those designs had sparked controversy by potentially circumventing gun laws: The lower receiver is the the “body” of a gun, and its most regulated component. So 3D-printing that piece at home and attaching other parts ordered by mail might allow a lethal weapon to be obtained without any legal barriers or identification.

Guslick, a Wisconsin IT administrator whose experiments with a 3D-printed AR-15 lower receiver drew attention to the issue of 3D-printable weapons earlier this year, speculated that the removal of the files was linked with the Newtown, Connecticut gun massacre that killed 20 children and seven adults in an elementary school last week. “Correlation is not causation, but it seems pretty clear that the tragic shooting in [Connecticut] last week is the impetus for removal of some designs on Thingiverse,” he wrote to me in an email. But Guslick pointed out that several gun-related items remained on the site, including a Glock magazine and Ruger pistol grip. “I’m not sure if those are targeted for takedown as well, or if only AR-15 compatible designs are being removed (given that the popular rifle has been utterly demonized in the media over the past few days, I suppose that may be plausible).”

Makerbot, for its part, included no mention of the Newtown shootings in a statement sent to me about the gun takedowns. “MakerBot’s focus is to empower the creative process and make things for good,” writes Makerbot spokesperson Jenifer Howard. “Thingiverse has been going through an evolution recently and has had numerous changes and updates. Reviewing some of the content that violates Thingiverse’s Terms of Service is part of this process.”

In the past, Makerbot chief executive and founder Bre Pettis has remained ambivalent about guns on Thingiverse, which has become the world’s most popular sharing platform for 3D-printing files. When I asked him about the issue last month, Pettis pointed to the terms of service ban on weapons, but added that the site goes largely unpoliced. He was more explicit in a blog post last year: “The cat is out of the bag,” Pettis wrote. “And that cat can be armed with guns made with printed parts.”

That freewheeling outlook contrasted with other 3D printing services like Shapeways, which bans the uploading of even gun-like toys more than 10 centimeters in length.

In response to Makerbot’s crackdown, Defense Distributed founder Cody Wilson wrote to me in an email, saying that the group plans to create its own site for hosting “fugitive” 3D printable gun files “in the next few hours.”

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Guns don’t kill people; people kill people. I can tell you thousands of cases where people and children were killed without guns. 9/11 ring a bell to anyone. What about the guy who used dynamite to kill 38 kids in 1927 in Michigan?

Does this include parts for antique or hard to find fire arms? What if I had a firearm that was missing a part? I know any gun from 1900 on up is regulated but sometimes on recent stuff the crucial part may be missing…

They say you are in violation of the rules if you “distribute any User Content… that…promotes illegal activities” so if I upload a 3D design for a toothbrush for instance and someone decides to go out and stab someone else with it, that would then be in violation of the rules because it was used to promote illegal activity. It won’t be long before 3D printing is banned altogether and we all have to jump on the pirate ship!

Exactly. This is also to prevent a situation where some politician or activist group decides to make an example of them much like they have done with craigslist and prostitution and attack the service calls for misguided regulation based on unfounded conjectures.

“Guns don’t kill people; people kill people.” is s self serving simplification of a systemic problem. The NRA and friends are quick to blame anybody and anything on gun violence – but the accessibility of guns. I urge anyone to take a look at the “homicide by guns” report on: http://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/data-and-analysis/homicide.html All across the world we find that gun violence directly proportional to the accessibility of weapons. The murder (by guns) rate in the US is an order of magnitude higher than any industrialized country in the world except for countries in central and south America which have even less gun control than the US. In addition data clearly shows that murder rates without guns are a fraction of gun violence. The data makes sense…a lot of murders happen in a moment of rage where accessibility to a weapon can make all the difference – no time to think it over. It is just too easy for someone to kill 26 or 30 people in a matter of minutes with a semi-automatic weapon – and so easy, just squeeze the trigger, a child can do it. The NRA now suggests we put armed guards into every school. There are several problems with that approach, least of which, the policeman will have no chance against a determined gunman with assault weapons. The element of surprise will always be on the side of the killer. However, if it would be much more difficult to obtain guns as exercised in other countries, we could reduce gun violence by 90% with little effort and cost.

Very compelling analysis, except it is not accurate. Gun violence and gun control have been shown to not have a negative correlation as is assumed. Those countries in central and south America do not actually have looser gun laws than we do, they do however have a higher gun use rate per murder. Mexico is a perfect example of a country that has tight gun control and a soaring gun murder rate. Your statement of “All across the world we find that gun violence directly proportional to the accessibility of weapons” is false. El Salvador and Switzerland and two diametrically opposed examples.

“In addition data clearly shows that murder rates without guns are a fraction of gun violence. The data makes sense.”

Um… sort of. Murder rates without guns are a fraction of violence. Gun violence is not gun violence when there is no gun involved. Obviously. Yet, banning guns has been shown to not reduce the rate of murder or even gun use. The issue is not gun violence per se but rather violence in general. If you are looking to stop the incidences of violence with a gun then can we say you simply have a fear of guns and no real concern for underlying social problems?

Onto your statement of murder and rage, it is yet another “no”. Anger does play a part in murder, obviously, yet there is a legal definition for your statement. It is known as “heat of passion”, a condition in which there is no cooling off period and can possibly plead down a murder charge to a manslaughter. If you do some research you will find that most cases of murder involve a significant cool down period, and do not qualify. Lets not forget knives, bats and fists are weapons too.

As a last request, please do not represent our police officers and armed citizenry as “having no chance”. Many citizens and police officers have encountered situations in which they were vastly outgunned and still came out on top. Resistance is all that is necessary to buy time and save lives as has been shown time and time again.

Also, there have been studies done by various criminologists and lawyers as well the CDC on gun control and murder rates, if you want to give them a go. I cant instantly remember the links but I am sure google is your friend.

However, at the same time, countries like the UK with extremely stringent gun control laws had around 40 gun related deaths in all of 2012. I’d call that successful gun control legislation and policy enforcement.

Do you read what you right? Do you apply any reason to it before it comes out your fingertips? You are literally suggesting that proximity to a weapon makes people lose all inhibitions. You are literally clamoring for the government to have a monopoly on effective weapons. You are literally blaming the presence of things for the actions of volitional beings.

I am not a member of the NRA by the way. You expose your stupidity when you assume everyone who is pro gun rallies behind that organization. The NRA is too compromising. Real rights advocates rally behind the Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership and the Gun Owners of America. The NRA only barters away my rights and gouges you for dues to do it.

too bad your ignoring the actual facts California and New York have some of the strictest gun control in the country.. yet the highest murder rates meanwhile states that have rather lax control and concealed carry have low rates. after states passed concealed carry laws violent crime rates dropped dramatically and while raised slightly stayed lower then prior to said laws. dont like that fact? Australia banned most firearms and within 5 years after saw almost a 300% rise in violent crimes, the actual facts are that every where strict gun control happens they see sharp rises in violent crime per capita. criminology would do you good, crime is nothing more then risk vs reward we cannot change the reward but we can however change the risk, if you raise the risk to criminals they are less likely to commit crimes. all those shootings that happened where sad yes but not a single one of those criminals legally owned those guns, they where banned from owning them and still acquired them. shootings happen all the time with automatic firearms as well which are not legal for sale but that dosnt stop illegal importation. point is make all the laws you want but the criminals dont care you attempt to mislead by focusing specifically on crimes of passion which are a very small percentage of overall violent crimes, not only that but firearms are one of the least used weapons for such crimes. you mislead and show you know very little to nothing on the subject which you are actually speaking of. prior to the 1996 “assault weapons ban” an assault firearm was defined as “a select fire firearm” nowadays people refer to sporting rifles as “assault weapons” heres some facts for you on what makes an “assault weapon” what it is

collapsible buttstock- you do realize closed this must still conform to minimum length requirements, not only that they break rather easily the only reason the military uses these is to allow firearms to fit more people, instead of needing different length stocks for different arm length people

bayonet mount- no one has fixed bayonets since the Korean war this literally has no bearing on assaulting anything, if the military and police dont use it theres probably a reason its only still there because of contracts.

hi capacity magazine-you can buy speed loaders for revolvers even, go ahead and ban them, so a person carrys a couple more in a place that has no weapons since you wish to ban them it dosnt matter how long it takes to reload…. because criminal dosnt have to worry about being shot(and most criminals dont even use them they use cheap hi point pistols because they are $100 new and can be had for $10 on the street no one will really care if they vanished they are marketed directly for a non gun collector as a self defense weapon)

pistol grip- just as many people shoot better without this then with it, it dosnt help accuracy at all it only helps control(stop gun from moving around as much, since when is better control of something shooting projectiles bad?) tradeoff is it requires more muscle to grip it which lowers accuracy.

flash supressor- sorry if you really think this suppresses flash your retarded and have never fired a gun, at best it helps muzzle rise slightly which is a non issue since the firearms with these shoot rounds that kick about as hard as a ant really go shoot a r700 in .223(5.56 nato) you will see) big difference is instead of a 2 or 3 inch diameter fireball 3-6 inchs in front of the muzzle you now have 12 inch diameter fireball 1-3 inchs in front of it. it actually makes it easier to see and the only truly effective flash supressor is a silencer which requires a special license as is.

grenade launcher- you get this one no ifs ands or buts about it. its made to destroy things……….. too bad it requires a special license and $200 tax stamp, as well as each round(so 5 rounds would be $1000 an extensive background check 6-12 months of waiting plus the cost of the rounds). good luck even finding ammo for it not even too many of these around.

seriously thats it 90% of what makes an “assault weapon” is nothing more then cosmetic or personal preference, not a bit of it makes it easier to shoot or more deadly, only ignorance would make a person think that, a police officer with a pistol will face the same challanges be the offender shooting a pistol, 22 long rifle, or a barrett especially since most of these event occur in pistol range(why do you think police carry pistols and not rifles?)

the only person you would make it more difficult for to obtain firearms is civilians who obey the law, they will still be able to manufacture and import firearms and like i said your “facts” are wrong since all those other countrys saw sharp rises in gun violence after banning firearms.

Even though I would love to just fix my printer, I wonder if it’s easier and cheaper to just get a new one? I was looking at this site: http://www.nwd-microage.com/default.aspx?SetLanguage=En, what do you think?

If you look at the BATFE website it is perfectly legal for a citizen to make their own firearm as long as it falls within legal guidelines for civilian ownership. A facsimile of a semi auto AR-15 is completely legal. If you make a firearm for yourself you may not sell or transfer it to another. This is the law. Screw Thingiverse for their anti gun agenda.

Nobody anybody knows voted on that law. I didn’t. You didn’t. Nobody we know did. Nobody reading this did. So it does not apply to anybody. Without my signature on it, or yours, it is is an invalid contract.

So make all the guns you want, and transfer them as you like. Do you feel you need authorization from someone else to do so? Very well. I hereby authorize you to do so.

What about 3d printing designs of knuckle duster, clubs, Knives? What about Lab accessories and equipment that can help with meth labs and all kinds of drugs that can be manufactured? my point is – its going to be hard if not impossible to monitor and forbid misuse of 3d printed crafts.

They keep mentioning the school shooting as if it really is relevant here… Please quit it with the bullsh*t politics and manipulation. They took the images down for the simple reason of covering their ass and that’s it. Politicians can use the horrific tragedies to manipulate the public into giving up their rights, but I hope that your articles always have trustworthy information and call out the corruption in our government.